It merges the contacts but I still have quadruplicate groups. Is there any way to merge groups?
If you've been maintaining and migrating the same Contacts list across Macs over the years then you've probably come across your fair share of duplicate contact cards. They can also appear seemingly out of nowhere after setting up iCloud Contacts on your Mac for the first time.
Unless you intentionally keep certain information for the same contact separated out for whatever reason, duplicate cards will add nothing but irritation to your day, so here we're going to show you how to merge and/or remove them, whether you're sat at your Mac or not.
Click here to read more...
Article Link: How to Merge and Remove Duplicate Contacts in macOS and iCloud
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
How to Merge and Remove Duplicate Contacts in macOS and iCloud
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
WARNING! Hey all, be careful with this. Merging duplicates in Mac Contacts used to (and randomly still does) lose data when each record's contact fields had the same label but different data (two "mobile" numbers or "home" emails) it would just merge the records into one record and it wasn't obvious which data (number/email) was saved (unless you tracked before and after record by record).
This is totally ridiculous feature.
If contact cards are identical they should be "merged" automatically and there no need for manual clicking.
If contact cards are not identical it's highly questionable how user can decide to blindly merge many contacts without looking at who those are, what constitutes being "duplicate" and how conflicts are resolved.
Instead they should have "show duplicates" and allow mark "duplicates" and merge marked.
There are many common scenarios when the same phone number can belong to two people, for example home number and yet you might not want to merge different people or roommates into one card.
They way it's done now exemplifies Apple's shameful neglect to many of it's basic products.
If contact cards are identical they should be "merged" automatically and there no need for manual clicking.
If contact cards are not identical it's highly questionable how user can decide to blindly merge many contacts without looking at who those are, what constitutes being "duplicate" and how conflicts are resolved.
Instead they should have "show duplicates" and allow mark "duplicates" and merge marked.
There are many common scenarios when the same phone number can belong to two people, for example home number and yet you might not want to merge different people or roommates into one card.
They way it's done now exemplifies Apple's shameful neglect to many of it's basic products.
I've posed the following scenario to FullContact Support for over the past 1.5 months. 45 messages later, and they still cannot answer it -- half the time saying they CAN do this (sometimes via their paid subscription), and the other half saying they cannot:
"I have a Mac, and iPad, and an iPhone. I am syncing all three device Contacts through iCloud. All three devices are showing a different number of contacts. I need them to sync accurately so that no matter which device I look at, I will see exactly the same number of contacts with exactly the same information — the definition of synchronization. The contacts are also broken into groups: personal, work, etc. these groups also need to be synced accurately."
Not only did iCloud duplicate contacts, it also merged contacts that weren't even remotely similar (i.e. Apple Corporate details merged with a pet store).
Since the MobileMe syncing fiasco, Apple has been NOTORIOUSLY bad at syncing and should not even attempt it.If anyone can assist with a solution, greatly appreciated.
This is the issue that the many people face in there uses, some simple process that you need to follow recover this issue. Hold down the command key then go to delete option. Now you need to go cog icon and press the delete button. In this process, if you need any kind of help you can contact Apple Support Australia they provide you the best service.
I have had the same issue for years going back to iPhone 3 when I decided to use Contacts instead of outlook for contacts. I have always had a different number contacts on each mac, iPhone, iPad. I used to log out of iCloud and the back in but realized that any of the differences were lost and the last time I did that I lost 50 contacts.
So now I just manually check for duplicates and hope any new additions are making their way into the iCloud.com file which I consider the master. ( interestingly there is a "restore contacts feature" on iCloud.com settings that allows you to select from the past 2 weeks of contact files as a back up - good to know)
It would be great if apple created a contact manager / utility to compare contacts with common emails ( info @domain) or common phone numbers ( xyz company) so that you could identify duplicates and also identify the contacts not syncing between devices.
It would be even more amazing if there was a way to sync Outlook contacts to Apple contacts - I have way more contacts in outlook (4200 contacts) than in the apple app (3000 contacts) and I gave up trying to keep them in sync - it easy enough to move / transfer them on an individual bases - drag a vcard from outlook to desktop and "open with" contacts.
Things could be worse - back in the day I used to have 2 giant Rolodex's - and it was quite a job keeping those updated - or even figuring out where I put the contact info - company or contact name? - lol
Back in the day, Apple used to allow us to connect and manually sync...accurately. Nowadays, their "support" can't even do anything other than tell you they are a "senior advisor" over and over.
I've seen enough misfires to be leery of Contacts autonomously deleting anything. I'd rather resolve some duplicates from time to time, personally, than risk losing anything. In fact, this "Look for Duplicates" feature is something I'd NOT use unless it lets me review the merges before they happen. Otherwise, I'm gonna just look for duplicate contacts, select just those a pair at a time and use the "Merge Selected Cards" feature.
[doublepost=1534865551][/doublepost]
This does seem pretty janky. I'm not sure how long ago, but at one point I remember Contacts (or Address Book or whatever it was called) would bring up both contacts, highlighting the differences, and let you pick which to keep.
Last edited:
Would be nice if article told you how to sync and merge between iPhone and MacBook Pro without needing to use iCloud. Like doing so via cable and via wife. Even more detailed option of how to make sure both new contacts on MacBook and iPhone are merged and neither is lost regardless off whether new number was added to iPhone or macbook Pro
Yeah, it show both and not only ask you which to keep but also which to combine because there may be something new added on one of the contacts either to iPhone,iPad or MacBook.. This is a bit messed up and I believe overlooked by the people who work in software programming at Apple. Whoever did this is a knucklehead..